[Avodah] Torah study vs/ other contributions to society

[Micha Berger]

I blogged my impressions of RYHutner's concept that I called the
preference of living a "broad life". See
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/05/a-broad-life.shtml>. This touches
both on talmud Torah vs other mitzvos as well as mitzvos vs persuing a
career.

I am befuddled by the amount of attention we're giving Megillah 16b.
After all, Mordechai himself, the subject of the discussion, chose
hatzalas hefashos. "Im la'eis kazos", even though he was sure that
others were available. "Rov echav", most of Anshei Keneses haGedolah
approved to the point of not thinking less of him.

Well, the SA (YD 251:14) says it's mutar to take money from learning
Torah to pay off the gov't, since that's hatzalas nefashos. The Ta"z
(6) answers how this is not soseir our gemara, which places TT first.
It's not about what he ought to do, but about being better off being
the kelaf upon which TSBP is written than needing to answer the call
of hatzalas nefashos.

Clearly, the Taz holds our gemara is not prescriptive.

The Chasam Sofer (parashas Zachor, pg 193) writes that Mordechai got
the job of hatzalas nefashos because HQBH valued his learning less.
That's why Hashem put him in a place where his Torah study was
interrupted, rather than doing the same to theirs. And when Anshei
Kenesses haGedolah saw this, they demoted him one level.


On Wed, May 16, 2007 7:28 pm, R Doron Beckerman wrote:
:>> What of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his group, who are granted
:>> Toraso Umanuso exemptions from Mitzvos Ma'asiyos?
:>> ... and whose talmidim didn't succeed and we are told not to follow?

: We are told not to follow his Derech for *the multitudes* (*Harbeh*
: Assu etc.), but the Biur Halachah (156) says that there are
: individuals who can...

Nu, so that answers the BH's opinion of the Gra or what he would think
of the CI, if either really did live "ivory tower Torah" lives. It
says little about what anyone else should be doing. (For that matter,
it could mean that any negative statement about Mordechai might be
because he personally should have been a RSbY, and also not
generalizable.)

...
:>> So I reiterate my question -- how does this notion of focussing on
:>> one mitzvah not violate the mishnah of havi zahir, which seems to
:>> me to advocate as broad of a focus on mitzvos as possible?

: I think the Mishnah means not to be Mezalzel in any Mitzvah. Not to
: fulfill the Middas HaZehirus -rather one must be particular to keep
: it with all the Dikdukim etc. that one keeps the others....
...
: IOW, this Mishnah is LaAfukei a person who might ignore the obligation
: to stop learning to shake the Lulav because he is learning and racking
: up a million points a second instead of the thousand points for Lulav,
: Al Derech Mashal. But the Mishnah is not advocating anything beyond
: that.

But "that" is exactly nidon didan!

Advocating not ignoring lulav is at least the same as advocating not
ignoring Zaka.

The mishnah says that one shouldn't ignore lulav for learning (the
reisha) because (as the seifa continues) you're simply wrong if you
think you can know that one is "a million points a second" and the
other a thousand -- i ata yodei'ah secharan!

Similarly you can't know that working Zaka is fewer brownie points per
second than learning. Or do you mean something other than "sechar"
when speaking of "points"?

As it is, I'm convinced that since Mordechai did the right thing, even
if it was the lesser choice, there are at least two axis of value. I
did not put much thought to how one maps them to sechar. From a causal
perspective, the one with greater self-refinement, that changes the
person's "ba'asher hu sham" (to quote the leining for RH), would be
the one for which he is judged and thus associated with sechar.

What then of a case where Mordechai is told not to do the more
refining act? Is he to give up sechar because he followed halakhah?
How is that tzedeq?

This line of reasoning is the same one by which I concluded that
Mordechai was lessened in one way but refined in another -- just
coming to it from the opposite direction.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter